I grew up in the “City of the Big Shoulders.” I received my undergraduate degree from Northern Illinois University, a state college not unlike the one described by Jane Smiley in her novel MOO. I left the Midwest in the summer of 1980 heading Northwest to attend graduate school at the University of Oregon (M.A. Curriculum and Instruction) and Oregon State University (Ph.D. Human Development and Family Studies). I now find myself quite at home in the drizzle and woods of the beautiful Pacific Northwest.